MT 110. Data Analysis.
SEE WARNING
For 2001-2, this course runs until Christmas. The lectures
take place at Wednesdays, 12 noon, in Callan Hall (old campus).
The course is about stuff that every scientist needs to know. We all
have to deal with data, analyse them, and try to draw conclusions
about them. The
topics are:
Terminology: Variables, cases, types of variables. Displaying
data, stem and leaf diagrams, histograms.
Numerical summaries: Mean, median, quartiles, inter-quartile
range, box-plots, standard deviation.
The Normal Distribution.
Relationships between variables: Scatterplots, correlation,
regression lines. Relations between categorical variables. Causation.
The main text is: David S. Moore and George P. McCabe,
Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, 3rd edition,
1998, published by W.H. Freeman, New York.
If you don't already have it, buy this book immediately.
Our course relates to the material of Chapters 1 and 2,
and a little bit of Chapter 10. The rest of the book
will be useful to you in future years (whether you
continue to study Mathematics or not) and for the rest of
your working life, because it covers standard material about
the design of experiments and surveys, and the art
of drawing inferences from the results. If you take
Maths in Second Science, you can use this text with course
MT 220: Introduction to Statistics. It would also be useful
to have when studying the third-year Statistics
laboratory-based courses: ST361 Data Analysis
and ST362 Statistical Quality Control.
Online resources in the areas of Probability
and Statistics
WARNING: The tutors report that
some students have been absent
from tutorials, others have not acquired, copied, or seen the book,
others are not preparing for tutorials. This is to remind you,
if you are one of these people, that you are required to attend tutorials,
that your grade will be based in part on the marks you get for
the work you turn in and for the QUIZ which takes place in each
tutorial. If you turn nothing in, your mark is ZERO.
If you are not there, your mark is ZERO. The quizzes are
based on the
assigned questions from the book.
Prepare the answers before you come to tutorial,
and use the tutorial to clear up any difficulties. You can also come
to my Office-Hours (Mon11-12, Tue9-10, Thu9-10)
Updated 21-11-2001.